Out Of Left Field
by Ghost Writer's Pen
Summary: Angela's life is full of surprises. Continued from Tell Me How You Really Feel


**Author's note:** This story is set after "Tell Me How You Really Feel." Also, I give Angela somewhat of a dirty mouth at times just to give her a little edge that you won't see on Lifetime. :)

* * *

I remember when I told my mother that I didn't want to have anything to do with her anymore. All of the lies, the deception, and the lack of an explanation weighed on my tolerance and I just couldn't handle it anymore. 

Apparantely I didn't listen to a damn thing I said or thought because right now I'm sitting in my truck while I wait for them to bring my mother outside. They're transporting her to a hospital where they're better equipped to treat her cancer. I'm part of the escort. Imagine that. My mother who betrayed so many people, including her own flesh and blood, and I'm sitting here escorting her to make sure she gets there okay. Why do I care? Why am I even bothering? I guess it's because she's still my mother, no matter what she's done. Maybe this is something I should start talking to someone about instead of how I felt about being shot and about Dylan's betrayal.

I look in my rear-view mirror and watch as they load her into the ambulance behind me. After a few minutes, they signal to me and the car in front of me that contains two other agents. The car in front of me pulls away and I follow them. I take a deep breath and let it out as I try to chill out.

About a half hour into the drive I'm already bored to tears because we're on a long stretch of road that has road, road and more road. The side of the road is miles and miles of open land. Like I said, boring.

I try and look at the bright side - the sun is shining and it's a warm day. It could be worse, I could be on a stake out somewhere in a dirty warehouse or something.

I take my eyes off the road for a moment and turn on the radio. Maybe some music will...

WHAM! The sound of metal hitting metal and the loud ear-piercing crash of glass shattering fills the air around me as I feel the hard impact on my left side. My truck flies to the right and rolls over a few times and then comes to a stop after it rocks back and forth for a few seconds.

I'm dazed for a moment and I remain still as I try to figure out what just happened. As I start to get my bearings, I soon realize I'm upside down, tightly strapped to my seat as the seatbelt confines me. When I try to move I feel a sharp pain in my left side. My guess is that I've torn the bullet wound. I place my palm over that area and feel something wet and sticky...blood.

Suddenly, the passenger side door is yanked open and a beam of blinding sunlight hits me, causing me to squint. Then I see my mother crawling in. "Mom?!?"

She reached out towards me and for a moment I felt as if she was going to help me, but she ripped the gun from my side and pointed it at me. "I'm sorry, Anglea."

"Mom? Mom, what are you doing?" Fear started to swell inside me.

Her face was expressionless. "Don't ask questions." She crawled out of the truck and ran off.

"Mom?!? MOM!!!!" I screamed. Then I heard two gunshots and I was completely frozen for a second as adrenaline began to race through me.

Everthing was silent for a moment until I head tires screeching away.

"Fuck!" I screamed in frustration and anger. I pushed on my door but it wasn't moving. Without even thinking about the consequences, I pressed the release button on my seatbelt. It was jammed so I kept pushing. It finally released and sent me crashing down onto the roof ontop of a bed of shattered glass. I hissed in pain as my side reminded me that it needed attention and as the bits of glass dug into my hands and arms. But I didn't spend much time worrying about it, I tucked the pain to the back of my mind and crawled out of the passenger side door.

I looked around and saw the ambulance on the side of the road, the driver's door wide open. Then there was the car that was in front of me. Like my truck, it too was lying in the grassy field on it's roof. Slowly and cautiously I made my way over to it. But it didn't take long to figure out what had happened because the two agents were lying in the grass, each with a gunshot wound to the head. I closed my eyes and my breath got stuck in my chest as I envisioned my mother killing them.

I went back to my truck, feeling a little woosy from the whole ordeal, and took a moment to re-group as I leaned against the front bumper. Then I crawled back inside and found my bag. I dug my phone out and called Leo.

"Jenkins."

"Leo, it's Angela. I need you to come get me. And bring back up."

"Huh? I thought you were going with your mother to..."

"I was but someone ran me off the road as well as the other agents with me."

"Are you alright?"

"Sort of. I'm on Route 40 South. Maybe about 20 miles from Edgarton."

"Sit tight, I'll be right there."

"Hurry," I said before I hung up and closed my phone, tossing it back into my bag.

I went over to the ambulance where the door was open. Inside, the driver and his partner were lying in a pool of their own blood as a result of multiple stab wounds. I looked at the steering column and the keys were gone, naturally. I'm sure my mother made it a point to throw them somewhere out in the field or perhaps she even took them with her so I couldn't get them.

I climbed into the back of the ambulance and found some gauze pads and surgical tape and did my best to clean up my wound. I figured it was probably best to stay put and stop walking around so I leaned back and looked out through the open doors at the long stretch of road as I waited for Leo.

As I waited I thought about a lot of things - namely my mother. What was she trying to do? Then a sudden thought popped into my head - what if my mother was going somewhere to die? I shook off the thought and did so just as Leo pulled up and got out of his car.

"What the hell's going on?" He asked with a concerned look as he took in the scene in front of him.

"Wish I knew," I said as I walked towards him.

"Holy shit, you're bleeding." He put his hand on my arm as he led me towards his car.

"Yeah." A couple of cars pulled up behind him and four men soon approached. "The two agents in that car over there are dead, so are the EMT's in the ambulance," I informed them.

"What the hell happened?" Leo asked as the other agents checked out the scene.

"We were driving along and out of nowhere someone plowed into the side of my truck and flipped me. I blacked out for a few minutes but when I came to I..." I looked down and swallowed hard. "I saw my mother. She took my gun and...um...she...she killed the two agents in the car."

"Oh God, Angela."

"I was stuck in the truck and when I got out she was gone. I heard tires screeching so someone picked her up."

"Alright, why don't you get in the car while I fill these guys in. We need to get you to the hospital."

I didn't argue as I was starting to fade. Normally I was the first to protest and press on, but my side was throbbing and I was starting to get a headache.

Leo was quick about it and ran back to the car, practically jumping in it Dukes Of Hazzard style. "Lights and sirens?"

"That'd probably be a good idea," I said as I tightly held onto my side. Then I passed out.

* * *

I'd slept the day away after Leo drove me home from the hospital. They sedated me against my requests not to so now I have one hell of a medicated hangover. 

I groggily went into the kitchen and made myself some coffee, then I heard the doorbell ring.

When I answered it I was relieved to see Dozer. "You alright?"

"Now that's an interesting question seeing as my own mother had someone run me off the road and then she used MY gun to kill two agents. I'm just great. Another fabulous day in the life of Angela Henson."

He looked down at his shoes for a moment and I could tell something was up. Then he handed me a manilla folder. "I thought you should see this."

I took it from him and started reading the contents. With each sentence I felt sicker and sicker to my stomach. "Wh-where...oh my God, when did you get this?"

"Last night."

I eased myself down on the couch and ran my fingers through my hair. "No. No. This can't be true."

"I had them check it four times. I'm sorry."

"She faked her cancer all along? And here I was buying into it and feeling bad. What a fucking idiot."

"She had everyone fooled, you're not the only one. Someone in the lab was helping her and they created the false records. They found him dead in his apartment this morning from an apparent suicide."

"Bullshit! She probably killed him too."

He handed me another folder. "The coroner's examination. It's been ruled a suicide."

As soon as I heard him confirm the word suicide I closed the folder and threw it on the table with the other one. "I..I can't deal with this anymore. This is way too much."

"I'm sorry, Angela. What can I do?"

I thought for a few minutes, biting on my thumbnail as I paced. "I'm going to take a shower and then you can help me."

"Help you do what?"

"Do a little investigation of my own." I kissed him on the cheek as I walked past him. Dozer truely was the best. He was the only one that I could always count on to be there for me. He's never let me down and that's pretty rare in my life.

* * *

Dozer and I drove out to Route 40 where everything happened because I wanted to go through the scene myself. But when we got there we found the road blocked off. 

He parked the car by the blockade and I looked down the road where I'd been hit. I got out of the car in somewhat of a shocked trance because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Workers were tearing up the road with all sorts of big trucks.

"Sorry, road's closed," one of the workers said to me as he swept up debris.

"What happened to the road?"

"Pipe burst last night."

Liar. We were in the middle of nowhere, what pipe would ironically burst at the exact point of where the crash happened.

I didn't have the energy to argue so I got back in the car, sighing heavily.

"You should be home resting," Dozer scolded me.

"They're covering it up."

"Covering what up?"

"Tire tracks, glass, metal, evidence...everything."

"Who?"

"Gene, that's who."

Dozer's eyes grew wide. "What?!? Are you crazy? He's our boss."

"I've known him a long time and never trusted him. No reason to start now after what I'm seeing. Let's go find my truck."

So we did just that. We drove back and went to the lot where they towed my truck.

I went into the office and showed the desk clerk my ID and he opened the gate for us.

There it was. The left side was facing us, all smashed and deformed, grass and mud splotches everywhere.

"Wow," Dozer mumbled.

I have to admit, the sight of it freaked me out a little bit too. When you're in the moment you don't think much of it, but now that I'm seeing it right-side-up and just sitting there all broken, windows smashed out, makes the visual more impactful.

"I'll just stand over here and wait for you to do what you need to do," he said nervously.

"Okay," I said as I slowly walked towards it, flashbacks of the sound of shattering glass and the loud bang of metal on metal replayed in my head with each step.

When I walked around to the right side to look at the driver's side door, my stomach sank when I found the door missing along with the front quarter panel.

"No!" I yelled out.

Dozer came running over. "What's the..." then he saw what I was so mad at.

I stormed over to the desk clerk. "Who took the door off of my truck?"

"What? I don't know. It came in without a door."

"There's no way it came in without a door. I was in the damn thing yesterday and the door was jammed shut."

"I'm telling you, the truck was towed in here yesterday afternoon around four o'clock. I was here when it came in. There was no door. I distinctly remember because the first thing that caught my eye when they towed it in was the blood inside. I don't do too good with the sight of blood. Makes me queasy."

He was telling the truth but that wasn't helping the situation for me.

I walked out to Dozer's car and leaned against it. "What's going on, Dozer? Someone is trying awfully hard to cover all of this up, and I need to find out what's really going on."

"Where do we start?"

"We need to find my mother."

* * *

I'm going to owe Dozer big for keeping him up all night trying to track my mother down. But I'll owe him huge if the lead he came up with pans out. 

He let me use his car to drive out to this shady little motel where he says my mother may be staying. I go into the office in hopes someone can point me in the right direction.

"Evenin'," the man said with a large wad of chewing tobacco tucked into the corner of his mouth.

I show him a photo of my mother. "Have you seen this woman?"

He squints, moving the photo back and forth from his eyes. "Not quite sure."

I slide a twenty dollar bill towards him.

"Yeah, I've seen her."

"What room is she in?"

"Hmm, let's see. Maybe it's number six, or it could be number nine."

I slide another twenty his way.

"Number nine."

"Thanks."

I walk outside and head towards room number nine. All the while a large knot is knitting away inside my stomach.

When I get to the door, I put my hand on the knob and try to turn it. Ironically, it turns and the door opens slightly. I can hear the TV from inside the room, but all of the lights are off.

I move it open a little further with my foot and peek inside but I don't see anyone. Slowly, I poke my head inside and the second it's all the way I feel the cold steel pressing up against my right temple. Then I'm roughly yanked inside and tossed onto the floor, the door slamming behind me.

"Why don't you ever listen?" my mother asks as she stands over me, pointing my gun at me.

"I'll listen when you start telling me the truth for once." I started to get up but she waved the gun at me and tightened her grip on it. "What? You're going to shoot your own daughter?"

"If I have to," she said coldly.

I was stunned by her answer because it was so harsh and void of any feeling. "You'd do that to me?"

"Survival, Angela. You'll someday learn that this job is all about survival. You do what you need to do no matter what."

I shook my head. "First I get shot by some jerk who lost to me in a poker game, and now I'm going to get shot by my own mother." I chuckle slightly in a sarcastic tone. "I tell ya, I'm having one hell of a month."

"You were shot? When?"

"Oh please, don't act like you care. It doesn't matter. Just shoot me, kill me, do whatever it is you need to do and get it over with." She didn't respond. She just stood there, staring at me blankly. I used this moment to stand up. "Give me my gun and I'll walk out of here."

She snapped out of her trance and creased her brow. "No. I can't let you do that."

"Mom, please."

"I'm sorry, Angela but it has to be this way."

I closed my eyes for a moment and in that moment I heard a gunshot.

I waited for the impact of the bullet and the pain, as I thought it was inevitable, but I felt nothing. I opened my eyes and saw my mother collapsing to the floor in front of me and Gene standing behind her with a gun. My eyes instantly grew wide. "Mom!" I gasped as I knelt down beside her, cradling her in my arms. She was already dead. I grabbed my gun and stood up, pointing it at Gene, "Do you realize what you just did, you bastard!"

He shrugged as if it were nothing as he tucked his gun back inside his jacket. "I saved your life."

"You murdered my mother," I answered through a clenched jaw. "You're gonna pay for this and for everything else you've done to me."

"Angela, you're tired and under a lot of stress. What you're saying right now is a result of all that. Put down your gun and we'll talk about it."

"No! First you...you cover up the accident scene and then the door of my truck mysteriously disappears along with the paint and evidence on it from the person that hit me. I don't think these things are called stress, Gene, they're called parts of a conspiracy."

He sighed and adjusted his glasses as he usually does before one of his bullshit speeches. "Angela. Put down the gun," he said as he stepped closer to me. "Don't make me do something I don't want to do."

"Oh, and what is that? Are you going to kill me and hide my body wherever you're putting everything else?"

"Honestly, Angela, you're really trying my patience. Now put down the gun."

I tightened my grip on it. "No. You killed my mother, I'm not letting you get away with that."

"Alright then. We'll just do things the hard way." He walked out of the room and two men dressed in black entered.

I gulped down the fear that just bubbled up to the surface when I saw the size of each of them. Clearly, I was in trouble.

"Put down the gun, Agent Henson."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"We'll ask one more time. Put down the gun."

_"God. I'm totally screwed,"_ I thought to myself. I shook my head as I backed away.

One guy nodded to the other and before I could react, he tackled me to the floor like a football player. All I remember are fists and steel-toed boots hitting me over and over and over until I passed out.

* * *

I woke up and found Dozer looking down at me. "Thank God you're awake." 

Every inch of my body felt sore. "Where am I?"

"The hospital. You were beat up pretty bad. Yeah, um...you're ah...you're mother pretty much knocked your lights out. Gene found you."

I immediately flashed back to the motel room and suddenly I was totally confused. "No. No she didn't."

"Angela, Gene found you. Your mother took off and left you there to die."

"No, Dozer! That's not what happened. Gene..."

Gene entered the room and I immediately shut up.

"Hello, Angela. Good to see you awake. Dozer, can you excuse us?"

"Sure."

After the door shut behind Dozer, Gene turned to me, folding his arms over his chest. "You know, you really need to work on your listening skills and I hope this little incident reminds you of that. It's just a shame that the point had to be driven home to you so violently."

"You murdered my mother. What did you do with her?"

"Angela, you're just confused. I didn't murder your mother. I must have come in just after she left, and it's a damn good thing I did because you were lying there coughing up blood all over yourself, struggling to breathe. I saved your life."

"You sick bastard." Every word out of his mouth was a lie, and even in my damaged state it was almost disgustingly obvious. I was so enraged I couldn't keep the tears from flowing from my eyes.

"Listening skills, Angela. Let's try them out right now." He leaned in close to me. "You mention anything about what happened in that motel room and I swear to you that you will regret it ten times worse than what you suffered yesterday. Oh, and Jerry will also have to suffer for your actions as well."

"You leave Jerry out of it, he has nothing to do..."

"Oh he has everything to do with anything related to you, Angela. Feel better soon, okay?" He winked at me, sneered and left the room.

Just when I though my life couldn't get any worse, it just did.

To be continued


End file.
